You’ve heard it before…. having an all-inclusive sales platform helps sales representatives close deals more quickly upfront rather than waiting weeks, months or even years. 

Well, that’s easy enough to say, but why not hear it right from a daily Salesforce user? HexArmor‘s Director of Sales, Geno Lechuga, recently spoke on the AdVic “Salesforce Simplified” podcast about how his team benefits from being able to see every interaction prospects and customers have with his business—regardless of department—using the CRM platform that connects his whole company. Here’s some highlights from that conversation.

Sales Team Adoption of Salesforce

Change can be difficult for any person, but for HexArmour’s Lechuga, trust and respect make the process much easier. 

“If you come to our company as a new employee in our sales department, it’s likely that you have not used Salesforce the way we do. But the way we use Salesforce is a part of the reason why we’re so successful. If you come to our company, we promote the way we do things through trust and respect, [which] are the pillars of any particular team; [and] they’re earned. They’re not granted to anyone, nor should they be. But once the trust and respect is there, now the sales team can see the company vision, and then they can buy into the way we do things, i.e., Salesforce. And all that comes a little easier with that trust and respect.”

Salesforce Improves Lead Generation

Leads are costly for any company, and that’s no different for HexArmor. 

“We want to see the ROI for our leads,” Lechuga explained. Whether they’re marketing-generated leads, trade show leads, or even leads generated by a rep. With Salesforce, we’re able to track the ROI and determine really if the leads make sense from a company aspect. So in other words, if we track specific leads to a specific trade show and the ROI is favorable in our favor, then looking at our budgets for the following year will be helpful knowing that we need to invest in that trade show again. And again, all of these results are tracked right there in Salesforce. So, with these types of results being tracked, companies can really decide what type of lead generation they want to invest in. So, the overall efficiency and knowing where to put your dollars, it all comes from the data that’s generated through Salesforce.”

Analyze and Share Customer Data 

Commenting on how his team analyzes and shares customer data internally via Salesforce, Lechuga said, “The nice part about Salesforce is it’s all right there on the same platform. If I run a specific report for a specific region, I can easily do that right inside Salesforce and allow that region to see that report as well. So, we utilize this data daily and it helps our teams drive more business. And as a company, we’re big on data and we make big company decisions based on the data.”

Salesforce Helps with Retention, Too

It’s no secret that customer retention is directly proportional to increased revenue and business growth. Customer acquisition becomes futile if you cannot keep the customers coming back. Here’s how Lechuga says Salesforce helps HexArmor with retention:

“Retention really is an area that I can say I am very proud of the job we’ve done here at HexArmor. Now, partly it’s because we offer certain technologies that are proprietary to our company that our customers need and we know what they need, but a lot of it is the type of data that we’ve tracked inside Salesforce that really helps us to stay in front of these customers and communicate what’s important to them and what they need. So all the way from setting future tasks or reach outs, organizing a detailed sit down meeting, all this information is right there in Salesforce.”

There is much more to our conversation with HexArmor’s Geno Lechuga, including discussion of how the Salesforce mobile app helps his team better serve their customers. Listen here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

With a Salesforce® solution your sales team will drive more revenue because of the power of built-in automation and analytics. Additionally, you’ll maximize the time reps spend selling with productivity and collaboration tools that work anywhere, on any device.  It is flexible, scalable and integrates with all other Salesforce Clouds. Why not let the AdVic team show you how Salesforce automation tools can improve sales by increasing leads, reducing costs, accelerating productivity and closing deals faster? We’re just a click away!

Related Resources: 

The Best Features of Salesforce Sales Cloud

Maximizing Salesforce for Sales Teams (Podcast)

The Seven Stages of a Sales Pipeline

Do You Need Sales Automation or an Upgrade?

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The post HexArmor’s Sales Director Talks About Sales Cloud appeared first on Ad Victoriam Solutions.

Not to be confused with a sales funnel – which looks at the whole customer journey and the various stages a consumer will go through in their journey towards purchase – a sales pipeline looks at the different steps in the sales process, from gaining the lead to closing the sale. It is brand-focused, in that it looks internally at the stages that your sales and marketing teams need to move a prospect through in order to gain a customer and retain them.

And while you could do an internet search and come up with various numbers of stages – and numerous names for them – that people feel are in a sales pipeline, these seven are generally considered to be the “standard” stages for a business that follows a typical sales process.

1) Lead Generation: Sometimes called prospecting, lead gen is typically done through advertising to let your potential customers know that you exist, community initiatives/volunteering/giving back, or other promotional activities.

2) Lead Qualification: At this step, you are determining if a viable opportunity is worth adding to the pipeline and adding applicable information into your CRM. Also at this point, you have to consider if this marketing qualified lead (MQL) has the potential to become a sales accepted lead (SAL) or sales qualified lead (SQL).

3) Initiate Contact: Here’s where the real work begins in the various pipeline stages, as this is where the sales rep attempts to contact the lead to understand their business and requirements. This stage will help you map your business services against the lead’s needs.

4) Schedule a Meeting and/or Demo: So you have had your initial conversation with the lead. If the lead is convinced that your services could possibly be a solution for them, you may schedule a demo during this pipeline stage. You may also try to set up a meeting with the decision maker with a goal of negotiating the deal.

5) Negotiation: Many salespeople will tell you that the negotiation stage of the pipeline process is the most exciting to them. This is where top sellers separate themselves from others. And in a perfect world, your proposal would check every box, and your prospect would immediately sign on the dotted line. But in the real world, this doesn’t happen often. The goal of your negotiation is to find common ground. Sometimes it’s simple, and other times it seems like a struggle. Be prepared for everything that the prospect could throw at you, and rely on your experience to bring you across the finish line.

6) Closing the Deal: Here’s the coveted finish line! You found and qualified the lead, provided a proposal during a meeting/demo, and successfully negotiated a deal that works for everyone. But before you get too excited, you still need to close the deal, and that only comes when you have a signed contract in your hand – and not a moment before.

7) Post-Purchase: Now that the contract is signed, it’s time to seal a positive future relationship and you do that by providing exceptional service during onboarding and regularly monitoring the account’s progress. At opportune times, you can cross-sell existing customers on new services and upsell them on premium solutions. When the contract is about to expire, you can explore renewal options with them. And among your happiest clients, don’t forget to ask for referrals to other potential customer

“AdVic has become a true business partner for us. We are seeing improved sales rep morale due to system simplicity, speed of execution for quoting, and accuracy of data entered into the system. Every interaction with the team has been positive and their work is top notch.” – Ryan Hesske, Sales Operation Manager, ConnectWise

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Salesforce, the world’s leading CRM platform, helps you streamline, manage, and track your sales process and pipeline – so your team can close the deal more times than they are today. And as a Salesforce Partner, the AdVic® Consulting Team has the breadth of experience to quickly implement a CRM system that will make your sales team’s pipeline steps a seamless success. Let’s get your business on the road to closing more deals today! Schedule a call with us below.

Related Resources: 

How to Improve Sales Forecasting in Salesforce with AI

Salesforce Tools for Retailers

Inside a Salesforce Implementation from Initiation to Go-Live

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In the marketing and sales world, CRM helps in nurturing leads and build better long-standing relationships with customers even before interactions with the sales team happen.

Ultimately what matters is the quality of leads that matters, not the quantity. So, instead of populating your database with unqualified leads, focus instead on how you can use CRM for lead generation and conversions by incorporating different techniques and integrating with different platforms and applications.

Let’s explore four different platforms/applications you can integrate into a Salesforce® CRM that will go a long way toward improving your lead generation process to attract – and convert – the quality leads you are seeking.

1. AI-Powered Lead Generation

Lead generation tools powered by AI (artificial intelligence) are assisting marketers to understand and find new leads and convert them. AI has enabled them to select the most valuable accounts and even decide on suitable marketing communication based on lead characteristics.

Typically, a marketing campaign could include digital ads, along with an email blast, social media posts, and possibly an event. If the campaign is effective, customers and prospects respond by generating activities such as website visits, shares, and clicks. They might also wind up filling out a form or doing something else that effectively turns them into a lead.

Today, with an AI-powered CRM using Salesforce’s Einstein, you can not only monitor that kind of engagement but use the data to adjust campaigns even once they’re already underway. This could mean tweaking the copy in an email to appeal more to a particular segment, or boosting the reach of a digital ad because one is performing better than the others.

The big takeaway about AI working for lead generation is that it draws out the most critical insights from the Salesforce Customer Success Platform and helps deliver recommendations that power all kinds of marketing activities that will lead to conversions.

2. CRM and Marketing Automation

Lead generation is an extremely important step in any business’s growth and goals toward conversions. Automating the many steps between marketing and sales gives your team more time to focus on overall strategy and nurturing the leads that show real promise. That means more prospects and more customers.

A CRM marketing automation tool, such as Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud, can also give you a richer, more detailed picture of potential customer behavior. For instance, you can initiate behavioral tracking methods such as following a user’s path through your website. Marketing automation software can also help your marketing team understand prospects’ interests and where they are in the purchasing lifecycle. Following up can then be customized around those specific insights.

Learn How Ad Victoriam Helped a Customer with a Marketing Cloud Solution

3. Integration with Social Media

Social media is one of the best tools for businesses to generate highly qualified and sales-ready leads that you can turn into conversions. It is a perfect place for businesses to find their targeted audiences, as well as turning them into the new sales-ready leads.

Baked into Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud is a social media tool known as Social Studio. Here you can connect your marketing, service, and sales teams with your customers through social channels to build meaningful relationships. You can also discover what your customers, prospects, and competitors are saying about your brands.

4. Email Marketing Tool

One of the ways to fill your sales funnel with high-quality leads to close more deals is to implement an email campaign tool into your CRM. With a tool such as Salesforce’s Pardot, you can initiate lead nurturing campaigns by automatically sending emails and perform marketing tasks based on triggers including time, user interactions, and other custom parameters.

In addition, you can respond to prospects when it matters, learn what’s happening between sales calls, and get alerts about prospect actions.

So, are you frustrated with populating your database with unqualified leads and want to better focus on how you can use CRM for lead generation and ultimately conversions? The Ad Victoriam consulting team can help you incorporate different techniques and integrate different platforms and applications that will put your business on a successful path toward more lead conversions starting today. Just click here and we’ll get right back to you immediately.

Related Articles
How to Convince Your Stakeholders It’s Time to Get a CRM
Why Your Business Needs a CRM
Rethink Your Approach to CRM Integration

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The Big Five

So if an all-encompassing data visualization, routing and scheduling, and optimized lead generation system is collectively missing from your sales process, here are five reasons that make Salesforce Maps integration – which Ad Victoriam is accredited for – a no-brainer for your team’s success.

1. Map-Based Visualization

Better understand hard-to-find data on a map-based interface and make location-driven decisions that drive productivity. Also, uncover new opportunities to produce revenue by seeing which accounts are nearby anchor accounts while planning a sales route.

2. Optimized Routing

When you have the ability to optimize routing, you can build and launch routes that cut down on windshield time, cross-town driving, and lower mileage or gas costs. In addition, you will ensure timely arrival to high-value prospects and customers, thus building robust pipelines using accurate prospect data and territory visualization.

3. Prioritized Scheduling

A seven-day schedule can be optimized with visits prioritized based on Einstein or Pardot scores, or potential revenue to spend the most time with the most valuable customers and prospects. From there, easily view the schedule via exchange-based calendars on mobile or desktop.

4. Lead Generation

With a Salesforce Maps integration, you have the ability to access necessary data to turbocharge your prospecting efforts and marketing campaigns. You also have the ability to fill schedule gaps with nearby opportunities and more.

5. Mobile Compatibility

While on the road, you can easily automate the admin processes, like check-in and check-out, via a mobile device. Additionally, your team can utilize voice command turn-by-turn directions and turn on real-time traffic alerts to safely maintain productivity.

Is extending the power of your sales and service professionals your challenge? Ad Victoriam’s certified consultants can integrate a Salesforce Maps intelligence solution for you starting today! Just click here and we’ll connect with you quickly!

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